Political Eye: Tea party faithful deny movement has lost steam

Where have all the tea party followers gone?

Separate ways, for some, in the Silver State.

Still, hundreds of Southern Nevada members of the 3-year-old anti-tax movement are alive and well and working largely behind the scenes, hoping to elect conservative Republicans in 2012.

Meanwhile, Sharron Angle, a one-time tea party GOP favorite, finds herself on the outs after having lost the marquee 2010 U.S. Senate race to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

"We got to know Sharron very well. We liked Sharron. We supported Sharron. But she's not someone we've heard much from. She's kind of left the tea party movement here," said Cathie Lynn Profant, a tea party leader who worked for Angle's 2010 U.S. Senate campaign in Las Vegas.

Profant now is president of the Grass Roots Tea Party of Nevada, a group that celebrated its one-year anniversary last Wednesday by inviting candidates to join them for dinner at Ricardo's Mexican Restaurant .

Republican congressional candidate Danny Tarkanian and his family attended the dinner. So did two other House hopefuls running against one another in a GOP primary, Chris Edwards and Charmaine Gus, according to Profant. Representatives of U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., and U.S. Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev., also came to celebrate the group and are regulars at the tea party meetings.

On Friday, the group held a breakfast at the Santa Fe hotel-casino and the Tarkanian clan showed up again as the Las Vegas businessman tries to consolidate tea party folks behind him. He's seeking to win the state's newest House seat, the 4th Congressional District, in his fourth try at public office.

Profant said her tea party group and the Las Vegas Valley Tea Party work together with several hundred members between them. She said the goal is to promote conservative GOP candidates now and then get behind the June 12 primary winners for the general election to defeat Democrats.

Profant dismissed the notion that tea party groups are fractured, lessening their clout in 2012. "I know the media likes to report that we don't work together, but we're trying to unite everybody together and educate people and get to know the candidates," Profant said.

Two other former Angle campaign workers, Laurel Fee and Jeri Taylor-Swade, have set up their own group: Tea Party and Republicans Uniting Nevada Conservatives, or TRUNC. They are working separately to help conservative candidates win election in 2012.

The group is sponsoring a May 22 debate at Aliante Station for Republicans running for the 4th Congressional District .

Angle announced in March she would not run for any political office in 2012. Instead, the former assemblywoman said she wants to produce a documentary on election fraud.

Last Wednesday, Angle tweeted this from a Drudge Report item about a foreign company that had purchased a firm that reports U.S. election results: "No ballots. No physical evidence. No chain of custody. No way for public to authenticate who actually cast the votes."

- Laura Myers

TAX DAY PROTESTS DWINDLE

In Northern Nevada, the tea party movement appears to be petering out.

In Carson City, for each of the past several years on Tax Day - the day when federal income taxes are due - tea party members and other people unhappy with the federal tax system have shown up to protest taxes and complain about President Barack Obama.

In 2009, 2,000 people showed up to scream and holler in what legislative police labeled the largest protest in Carson City history. Then in 2010, the crowd dwindled to 600 and then dropped to 250 for the anti-tax rally in 2011.

Last Tuesday, only 40 people showed up to protest.

Most held anti-Obama banners and yelled anti-tax slogans to drivers passing by the Legislative Building on Carson Street. Many drivers honked their horns in support.

But this was a ho-hum protest even by Carson City standards. If the crowds keep dropping at the same percentages as in the past year, will anyone be attending in 2013?

- Ed Vogel

POLLS PROLIFERATE

Sometimes in politics, when it rains polls, it pours.

Since Republican Mitt Romney appears on his way to wrapping up the GOP nomination, it seems like every polling group this month is measuring how he matches up against President Barack Obama. These are largely national polls and so they're a measure of popularity - or unpopularity - as much as an indication of who might win the election come Nov. 6 in the state-by-state contest.

Real Clear Politics keeps track of the surveys and offers a polling average. (Here's the website: realclearpolitics.com)

At the end of last week, the polling average was 47.6 percent for Obama to 44.6 percent for Romney, giving the president the edge after a bruising GOP primary season.

Here are survey results, all from April polling, used to come up with the average:

■ NBC News/Wall Street Journal: Obama (49), Romney (43)

■ Rasmussen Tracking: Romney (46), Obama (45)

■ Gallup Tracking: Romney (47), Obama (44)

■ CBS News/New York Times: Romney (46), Obama (46)

■ Quinnipiac: Obama (46), Romney (42)

■ CNN/Opinion Research: Obama (52), Romney (43)

■ PPP: Obama (49), Romney (46)

■ Reuters/Ipsos: Obama (47), Romney (43)

■ Pew Research: Obama (49), Romney (45)

■ FOX News: Romney (46), Obama (44)

■ ABC News/Washington Post: Obama (51), Romney (44)

- Laura Myers

Contact Laura Myers at lmyers @reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919. Follow @lmyerslvrj on Twitter. Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel @reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3900.